Case Study: From Skeptic to Believer
John R. Kormanik, Esq.
Author, keynote speaker, Professional Certified Coach to outstanding attorneys who increase revenue and satisfaction, master time and focus, elevate performance, gain more free time, and reduce burnout.
I work 1:1 with world-class lawyers; it’s an extremely high bar to become a client because I understand the value of my unique brand of coaching for those who make the cut. Many of the attorneys who engage me begin from a place of skepticism; lawyers are, after all, risk averse and, thus, skeptical people. Time is one of the greatest areas of doubt in engaging me as a coach. “I’m so busy as it is, how will I have the time to meet with you or do any work in-between our sessions?” the story goes.
A recent in-house client for a well-known crypto-currency exchange had just such doubts. The company had engaged a number of highly-qualified coaches to team up with various C-suite and similar level high performers. I was chosen by one of their attorneys for a six-month engagement. During our first meeting, my client (I’ll refer to her as “Celeste”) expressed grave doubts about being able to have time to work with me. She was leading a six-attorney legal team which had just undergone a Reduction in Force (RIF), and she and her team were stretched thin. She was overwhelmed and stressed.
Of course, having owned and led a law firm for sixteen years, I knew exactly what she was talking about. I also knew that, if she did the work, at the end of our coaching relationship, she would actually create more time because of our work.?
As I predicted, at the end of our six-month coaching engagement, when I asked Celeste to reflect on what she had gained from our work together, she reminded me of her doubt at the beginning. Here’s what she said:
John, you know I was skeptical at the beginning. The biggest thing I worried about was time. In fact, I think I told you “who has time to sit and talk with someone for an hour twice a month?” I’m here to tell you now, I am transformed; I am a believer. I now know coaching with you was priceless. ?
Why did Celeste go from skeptic to believer? She identified three ways coaching had increased her ability to focus and achieve greater success in less time.
Fear is a self-created mindset that kills your ability to focus.?
The first shift Celeste made thanks to coaching was understanding the negative effect fear had on her ability to focus.?
We’ve all been there. We’re thinking about a “difficult” or “tough” conversation we need to have. It consumes a ton of mental bandwidth before the conversation even occurs. From “how do I do this the right way,” to “I don’t want to upset them.” If you’ve ever occupied the role of a leader (??newsflash: each and every one of you has), you’ve had similar thoughts or some other thought that resulted in your preoccupation.?
When she brought up a “difficult” conversation she was dreading in a coaching session, the first thing we talked about was the story she was telling herself about the conversation. We discussed all the ways the conversation could go off the rails, how the person she needed to speak with was “challenging” under optimum circumstances, which made this necessary interaction all that much more stressful.?
I asked how being in her head like she was affected her ability to focus on her current three biggest projects. After saying “that’s a great question,” she spent a few moments in silence. She had never thought of how fear affected her ability to focus on the most important things that moved the needle for her and the company forward.
We created a system for her to recognize when fear was affecting her ability to perform so, for the rest of her life, she had the skill to conquer it and focus on the things she needed to focus on to best perform and lead her team.
Becoming a world-class communicator saves time.
When I practiced law, I had often heard the joke “oh, my practice would be great, if only for the clients!” Whenever you bring other human beings into the mix, with their quirks, emotions, and unique way of approaching things, the degree of difficulty is increased, at times exponentially. Celeste was no different when we began working together; by the end, well…
Celeste led a team of diverse, high-achieving lawyers, in a VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complicated, and ambiguous) environment. She needed to not only communicate with her team effectively, but she needed to also ensure her team communicated with the necessary stakeholders in ways that empowered win-win relationships and situations. And, of course, because of her position, she was also tasked with leading those more senior to her.
Working together, Celeste came to understand the “Golden Rule” is not the be-all-end-all when it comes to communication. In fact, it often results in miscommunication. Not only did she learn this new way of communicating, she specifically identified it as one of the top three things which gave her back time.
Celeste learned a communication method that seems simple yet is wildly effective among top performers and elite leaders: communicate with others in the way they need. If you don’t, your message won’t get across, you’ll be unable to lead effectively, i.e. have others achieve your goals, and you spend more time than is necessary communicating because you’ll be forced to repeat yourself.
Building solid relationships improves performance.
The third and final thing Celeste pointed to as a game-changer for her built on the first two. She understood the need to lead her team effectively; through coaching, she came to build the tools to be able to create a different mindset for it.
Celeste put it in a nutshell:
“By working closely with you and doing the work on my action steps between our sessions, I was better able to leverage the human capital necessary to achieve big things in a challenging environment.”
My clients are the best attorneys in their field. They increase revenue, master their time and focus, and improve performance while enjoying more free time and suffering less burnout. You can too.
To Your Success,
John R. Kormanik
Potential Realized; Life Optimized?